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*                                                            *  
*                         CYBERSPACE                         *  
*         A biweekly column on net culture appearing         *  
*                in the Toronto Sunday Sun                   *  
*                                                            *  
* Copyright 1999 Karl Mamer                                  *  
* Free for online distribution                               *  
* All Rights Reserved                                        *  
* Direct comments and questions to:                          *  
*   <kamamer@yahoo.com>                                      *  
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Another YEAR IN CYBERSPACE 
 
Well, kids, the Internet fad is into its third year. Below are 
some of my favorite albeit slightly obscure hits and misses of 
'96: 
 
MOST USEFUL WEB SITE: Hotbot (www.hotbot.com). A large search 
engine with a full-featured, drool-proof interface. 
 
WORST NON-USE OF A WEB PAGE: America Online. A lot of people 
were looking for some answers from AOL after receivng a massive 
pornographic email spam. I searched AOL's web page for three 
days looking for some kind of annoucement. Not a word. Just 
shiny, happy people over there. 
 
WORST NON-USE OF A USENET GROUP: alt.frank.magazine. A dumping 
ground for Make Money Fast spams but not much else. Where's the 
dish on local celebs and trough bound politicos? 
 
STILL THE BEST CANADIAN WEB SITE: The Nizkor Project 
(nizkor.almanac.bc.ca) 
 
BEST SITE TO FIND CANADIAN SITES: Yahoo! Canada (www.yahoo.ca) 
 
ODDEST YAHOO CATEGORY: /martha stewart/parodies 
 
BEST NEOLOGISM: Bisk: free internet membership disks some mega 
providers ladle out like a thick soup. 
 
DUMBEST INTERFACE METAPHORE: Attention software and net 
developers, quit trying make my computer just like TV. The 
reason I like my computer is because it is about the most un-TV 
like thing I can do with a cathode ray tube. 
 
MY MOST TRANSPARENT TROLL: On rec.arts.movies.current I 
complained bitterly that the movie adaptation of Jane Austen's 
Emma was nothing more than a rip off of Amy Heckerling's 
Clueless. Aside from one flame, most users emailed to tell me 
my message was too well puncuated to be the genuine article. So 
noted. 
 
MOST GROWING REALIZATION AMONG NET USERS: "Unlimited" access 
doesn't necessarily mean unlimited. 
 
BIGGEST BORE OF THE YEAR: Quake. Id software's long awaited 
Doom sequal is no Duke Nuke'em 3D, that's for sure. 
 
LOOK INTO IT: You get handed some crumpled, offical looking 
papers proporting Ted Kennedy used a stinger missile to shoot 
down the Stay Puff Marshmellow Blimp during the St. Pattys Day 
parade. Before you contact CNN, do a search of Usenet at 
www.dejanews.com. You might find a copy on alt.conspiracy and 
save your career. 
 
WHAT THE COOL GEEKS ARE WARE-ING FOR 96: USRobotics Pilot 5000 
-- the Apple Newton for the rest of us. Fitts in a christmas 
stocking or, as you might expect, a front shirt pocket. 
 
WHAT THE COOL GEEKS WILL BE WARE-ING IN 97: Apple eMate 300. 
Basically a Newton turned sideways with a hinged on keyboard. 
It's about time someone figured out a lot of us don't need a 
$5,000 Pentium notebook to do some basic text editing and 
collecting email. 
 
FUTURE CAN OF WORMS: So we've got Windows 95 and soon we'll 
have Windows 97 and then probably Windows 99. What are they 
going to call it in 2001? Windows 1? Windows 101?